


Al-Fajr

by artemisscribe



Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Character of Faith, I find religion and religiosity very interesting, Islam, Prayer, also you can pry my "Kayo is Muslim" headcanon from my cold dead hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-27 10:36:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19789132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artemisscribe/pseuds/artemisscribe
Summary: Kayo begins her day with the morning prayer, Salah Al-Fajr





	Al-Fajr

The alarm goes off at 4:50am and Kayo begins a routine that she has performed since before she could remember. 

Things are a little different now. As a child it wasn’t the harsh beeping of her bedside clock that woke her, but the melodic voice over the radio in her grandmother’s room. There is no comunal stirring here, no sound of the household rising together. Instead Scott groans in his sleep as he rolls away from the noise and, as a consequence, away from her too. 

She hits the off button and takes a few moments to collect her thoughts. She takes slow, deep breaths, her last chance to compose herself before a busy day. She can’t take too long, she knows that she has to get moving soon. 

Kayo forces herself to sit up and then to stand, stretching as she goes. The time is 4:52 and she can’t dally any longer. She pads across the bedroom to the bathroom, flicking on the light only after she has shut the door so she doesn’t disturb Scott any more than she already has. 

She washes herself carefully. Hands, mouth, nose, face, arms, hair, ears feet. Each bodypart cleansed three times before she moves on to the next. She’s precise but brisk, with the ease of a person who has been doing a simple thing her whole life. 

Her father prefers to brush his teeth before prayer, like the prophet. But Kayo doesn’t like to go to breakfast with the taste of menthol on her tongue so she settles for swilling her mouth with water instead. 

On the back of the bathroom door is a long, lightweight dressing gown; one of Scott’s that she’s stolen because it’s long enough to cover her arms to her liking. She pulls it on and fastens it as she leaves the bathroom. Scott himself is still in bed, cuddling his pillow in replacement for the Kayo no longer in his arms. It is 4:56am. 

Kayo braids her hair back as she crosses to the wardrobe. She uses no hair tie. After all it just needs to stay out of her face as she performs sujood. On a shelf of her wardrobe is her prayer mat, carefully folded around her Qur’an. She removes the book from the mat and returns it to it’s shelf. She doesn’t need the text for these prayers, she’s long since learned them by heart. 

She lays out her mat. Carefully adjusts it so it’s at a more pleasing angle in the room. To face Mecca she needs to be turned about 45 degrees away from the foot of the bed. She fidgets with the mat a little more before returning to the wardrobe to grab a scarf to cover her hair. 

On the rare occasions she covers her hair in front of others she can take hours arranging her scarf just so. For her five daily Salah she simply ties it at the nape of her neck under her hair. 

It is 4:58am. Kayo returns to the prayer mat, toes just on the edge of it, feet shoulder width apart, arms loose by her sides, eyes closed, breathing deeply. 

Another alarm garishly breaks the early morning silence. Behind her Scott groans and rolls to turn it off. His clock runs slightly fast, not unlike himself. By Kayo’s reckoning it is 4:59am. Dawn. 

She lets the sound of Scott beginning his morning fade into the background as she raises her hands, palms outward, focusing on her prayer.

“God is great.”

Slowly she brings her arms in, her left hand over her heart, her right hand over her left, and she bows her head. She loves this bit, like the whole of creation stills so she can be closer to God. She feels herself slowing down and being filled with peace as she makes her way through her morning prayers, bowing, kneeling, prostrating and reciting the way that her father taught her to. 

She misses praying with her father. It’s nicer to pray together, to move as one, to share the experience with someone, but she still feels that sense of peace and accomplishment even on her own. 

As she finishes up she becomes aware of her surroundings again. Hears the bedroom door open as she looks to her right to give the greeting to the angels, 

“Peace and the mercy of Allah be upon you.”

When she looks to her left to repeat it Scott is kneeling beside her with a mug in his hands. She can’t help smiling as she recites the words again. 

“Which angel am I here?” Scott asks once she starts to remove her scarf,

“The one that records my misdeeds” Kayo says, 

“What sort of misdeeds?” Scott asks, holding out the mug to her as he takes her scarf from her hands.

“Well, giggling when I’m supposed to be praying is one” Kayo points out as she takes the mug and a comforting waft of ginger tea hits her, “You’re a beast sneaking up on me like that.”

“I promise I won’t tell if you don’t” Scott smiles, leaning in for a kiss.

Kayo accepts his offered lips, and a sense of peace washes over her not entirely unlike the one she feels during prayer. 

“Well, then I suppose that’s alright” she smiles.

Scott smiles back at her. And she thinks that yes, God really is good to her. 


End file.
